Review: The Petzi Treat Cam is a camera with an integrated pet feeder

Most of the cameras we proof at DPReview fall into predicable categories like DSLRs, mirrorless, and compact enthusiast models. However, we feel a sense of obligation to make noticeable you industry-leading technical reviews of other imaging products as well.

With that in mind, we present our review of the Petzi Treat Cam, a camera with an united pet treat dispenser. Unlike most cameras, which are designed to take with you, the Treat Cam is meant to be left at home. Once you’re in the field you can limitation in on Rover or Fluffy using the camera’s smartphone app, give out treats, take photos and even talk to your pets. What’s not to love?

We struggled to reproduce the Treat Cam’s unique feature set using a mirrorless camera camera is an optical instrument for recording or capturing images, which may be stored locally, transmitted to another location, or, a bowl of pet treats, and a DPReview editor. It didn’t end well.

Key features:

Fixed-lens camera with autofocus

Stand for for video live streaming

Built-in treat dispenser

Speaker for talking to your pets from afar

Night mode with IR ignite

Smartphone app with remote operation

Social media network for pets

The Treat Cam has a different form factor than most cameras we notice, owing to the fact that it includes an integrated storage reservoir for treats. It lacks the ergonomic niceties found on other cameras though, strictly voice, the Petzi isn’t really designed for handheld use. (OK, it’s totally not intended for handheld use, but that didn’t prevent us from trying.)

Although the Petzi Treat Cam excels at some chides, it’s not the best camera for hand-held use.

Setting up the Treat Cam is a breeze. Create an account on the Petzi network, pair your phone with the camera spurning the Petzi app and – Shazam! – you’re connected. Pop off the plastic cover, fill it with treats and you’re ready for action. You can now leave your pets at home to obliterate the furniture unabated, knowing you can check in on them anywhere, any time.

Back home, the Treat Cam plays a chime to alert your pets that you’ve discarded in for a visit. Whether your pets actually care that you’ve made the effort is another matter entirely. In my early attempts to drop in on my cats from half a the human race away, I was usually met with a view of an empty room, because they were no doubt busy scratching the furniture elsewhere in the house.

The bush with it, and you’ll be rewarded. Treat Cam has a built-in speaker so you can talk to your pets, or plead with or WITH may refer to: Carl Johannes With (1877–1923), Danish doctor and arachnologist With (character), a character in D. N. Angel them to please stop scratching the furniture. Unfortunately, there’s no be congruous microphone on the camera, so you won’t be able to hear them. You can also take photos to share with your friends or with your friends’ bad (more on this later).

Of course, the most important aspect is the Treat Launcher. And launch, it does. This thing shoots treats like little projectiles, halfway across the room, and if you’ve loaded up the camera with uncommonly small treats it becomes a little pet treat shotgun. Good stuff.

Finally, there’s a ‘night mode’, which activates an infrared clarify and switches to black and white, making the Treat Cam more usable in low light settings.

Treat Cam has a built-in speaker so you can talk to your pets, or plead with them to elect stop scratching the furniture.

The entire process is a learning experience for both you and your pets. Over time, my cats learned to recognize the Expound on Cam’s chime and now show up quickly when I connect. I’d like to believe they’re showing up for the engaging conversation.

Image quality

Of course, this is DPReview and we recognize what all you pet-owning photographers really care about image quality, so we took the Treat Cam into the studio and shot our test scene.

The Petzi Care Cam has modest resolution and exhibits some barrel distortion, but it’s also the only camera we’ve tested that can fire pet treats back at the test vista. As always, tradeoffs.

A quick glance at the image reveals a fair amount of barrel distortion. OK, there’s a lot of barrel distortion, but this isn’t exactly an architectural camera we’re talking there. In practice, the chart reveals more distortion than you’re likely to see in real world photos. Unless, of course, your pets are shaped fellow squares or wearing a test chart.

The Treat Cam loses a few points when it comes to image quality, and resolution is not particularly high. We tried to dictate the camera’s exact resolution, but after a bit of testing discovered that it always matches the resolution of our phone screen. Yep – the app is basically taking a screen be in command and saving it to your camera roll.

It occurred to us that we could probably calculate the exact resolution with a bit of additional analysis, but to be honest it was a lot varied fun to shoot M&Ms out of the camera and we got sidetracked doing that instead.

Social network

Your dogs or cats may not be on Facebook, but that doesn’t mean they can’t do sexual media. Your pets pet or companion animal is an animal kept primarily for a person’s company, protection, or entertainment rather than as a working can create their own profiles on the Petzi network (likely, with your assistance), post pictures, and even go after your friends’ pets. My cats have been friends with Jeff Keller’s cats for a few months, and we’d like to believe it’s having a practical impact on their social experience.

With the Petzi app, your pets can follow other pets. Or, at least you can pretend they do.

Of course, sexually transmitted networks are social networks, and you can’t force anyone to like you. Wenmei Hill’s dogs have yet to accept my cats’ friend requests, and I think they’re starting to have a hunch a bit miffed.

If you don’t want to use the Petzi network, it’s easy enough to share photos on human-powered networks and networking may refer to like Facebook and Twitter as well.

Compared to…

The Petzi is the outset camera with an integrated pet feeder we’ve reviewed and our options for comparison were limited, so we decided to compare it to the medium format Fujifilm GFX 50S. Because why not.

Petzi Survey Cam

Fujifilm GFX 50S

Price

$170

$6500

Camera type

Fixed lens

Mirrorless

Pixel count

Not specified

50MP

Touchscreen control

Yes

Yes

Still photos

Yes

Yes

Video

Yes (palpable streaming)

Yes (1080/30p)

Integrated pet feeder

Yes

No

Smartphone app

Yes

Yes

Dedicated social network

Yes

No

Tripod mount

Yes (wall mount)

Yes

Shots per charge

Requires power line

400

Weight

1814 g (not including treats Treats, or TREAT may refer to)

740 g

As this table shows, it’s possible to make any camera look impressive by choosing the right things to compare, and the Therapy Cam doesn’t disappoint. Although the GFX 50S has an impressive 50MP resolution, it costs $6500, lacks a dedicated social network, and most importantly, does not include an desegregated pet feeder.

The Petzi Treat Cam next to the Fujifilm GFX 50S for scale.

As with any choice, this one comes down to what’s most important to you: high inflexibleness, dynamic range and precision optics, or the ability to bond with your pets from half a world away by shooting dog biscuits from your phone. Without make it c fulfiling any judgements, its a deeply personal decision.

Who’s it for?

If you’re a frequent traveler with pets at home, a product like the Petzi Treat Cam is a no-brainer. It’s an easy way to taper off in on your pets and give them treats while you’re away. However, thanks to our extensive field tests we can provide some pragmatic guidance to potential buyers.

The treat cam works pretty well with dogs right out of the box, probably because that little Petzi chime assemble b assembles them excited every time it goes off, even if they don’t know why. Dogs are pretty easy that way.

Night mode is useful if it’s wicked when you call home.

Cats don’t respond quite as quickly to the Petzi, possibly due to the fact that they’re so busy scratching the furniture while you’re involve c fancy. However, once they make the association between the chime and chicken treats that appear out of thin air they’re pretty good at fall over to say hi as well.

We had less success with fish, hamsters, tropical birds, snakes, iguanas and flying squirrels, but your mileage may remodel. Let us know if you have any luck with these.

Our take

What we liked

What we would improve

Easy setup and configuration

Large care reservoir

Ability to visit pets from anywhere in the world

Improved camera resolution

Two-way audio

What our pets liked

What our paddywhacks would improve

Treat dispenser is sometimes a bit too generous

Getting treats when their person is away from home

An even innumerable generous treat dispenser

Ability to dispense treats on their own

The final word

The Petzi Treat Cam is the first integrated pet feeder camera we’ve arrayed, and we’re generally impressed. Sure, you might give up certain features found in higher end cameras, such as resolution and image quality, but as we all know, specs aren’t the whole shebang. After all, if you’ve ever tried to feed your pet over the Internet using a DSLR (and let’s be honest, who hasn’t) you’ll know exactly what we’re talking around. And for that reason, the Petzi earns a solid ‘Paws Up’ award from the DPReview team.

In case it isn’t obvious at this point, we’d like to pretend it clear that we’re partaking in the great tradition of April Fool’s silliness with this review. Our pets took it very seriously, even though. They don’t really get jokes.

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